Motokid said:
It appears that the majority of employees views the employers as greedy, money grubbing, nasty, hooded phantoms who are only out to screw as many people, out of as much money as possible.
That was not at all the impression I got from reading the replies here. Generally I've been quite impressed with how people accept that sometimes companies simply have to let some people go because of whatever it was that caused their failing economy.
Is it fair to say that most think the above view is closer to what you think than the view of employers as worthy human beings who deserve the spoils of their efforts?
I can only speak for myself of course, but what you lined up there is about as far from my views as can be. As Billy said, as a rule employers are not like that, but there will always be those few that are, and those are the ones the unions are there to help against. I must say though, an employer doesn't have to be mean, evil, and whatever to want to keep expenses to a minimum - that is basically what they live off doing. So I accept that they will always want to save money, it's natural. But that just makes it all the more important that there's a union to make sure they don't save so much it becomes unfair to the workers.
As I see it, it is not so much a battle of employer vs. unions as it's two parties each trying to turn the forces of the free market to their benefit. And if we remove one of those forces (e.g. unions) the market will invariably swing to make things very difficult for many many people.
While I do understand that there are some owners who are completely heartless, I also tend to think that many are mis-understood and usually predjudiced against with a viciousness not altogether warrented. Just because a company has to fire people does not mean they are doing it for the fun of it. Owners have to make decisions that are for the overall good of the company, and sometimes that is not always the popular decision.
That's very true, and if the company simply had to fire people because they couldn't afford to keep them no union and no court-ruling can force them to.
The only visciousness I have actually perceived in this thread has been that against the unions who are 'only there to bleed employers white', which is just as far from the truth as your above statement. The unions are nothing but alliances of workers. If one worker is unhappy with his wages and he complains - he can just get fired, pronto. If all the workers in a factory stand together and demand fairer wages or they'll strike, they won't be fired because the factory needs its workers.
It happens in DK once in a while when the big unions and the employers' associations have entered a deadlock in wage negotiations, that just about every worker with an education shorter than 3 years goes on strike. Everything stops - supermarkets may be open, but they may or may not have any stock etc etc. It's a few years ago we had a General Strike like that, but it did last for so many days that there was talk of the government needing to step in to dictate a compromise to the negotiating parties to get the country started up again. A General Strike can have about the same effect as a snow blight can - everything closes - and I think that last big one lasted 10 days.
It's impractical at times that workers have the right to strike - but if we had no unions no worker would ever be able to negotiate higher wages. And in our society here in DK new unions would quickly be formed when all the workers in one workplace would stand together and demand better wages - the unions are nothing more than the further developed concept of that basic action, standing together because together our arguments carry more weight.
